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“One day it was nothing but laughs, then it was just over”: Josh Freese is still confused about his Foo Fighters dismissal – and says he needs to be “careful” what he says about it
![[L-R] Josh Freese and Dave Grohl](https://guitar.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Dave-Grohl-Josh-Freese@2000x1500.jpg)
Josh Freese has reflected on his dismissal from the Foo Fighters last year, which came two years after he was announced as the band’s touring drummer in 2023 following the death of longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins in 2022.
In May last year, the 53-year-old drummer – who over the course of his illustrious career has performed with the likes of Guns N’ Roses, Nine Inch Nails and The Vandals – shared his “shock and disappointment” at receiving the news that he had been let go from the Foo Fighters after two years.
“In my 40 years of drumming professionally, I’ve never been let go from a band, so while I’m not angry – just a bit shocked and disappointed,” Freese said in an Instagram post at the time.
Now, in a new interview with Modern Drummer, Freese reveals he has a “couple of small theories” as to why he was let go from the band, but adds he “can’t really go into them right now”.
“The Foo Fighters are such a big, mainstream band that everything I say gets taken out of context, reposted and blown out of proportion,” he reasons [via Louder]. “People created headlines from one quick, simple comment I made on a podcast not long ago, it’s crazy.
“I’ve got to be careful about what I say about it. But I’ve got a lot to say about it and I’ve been just trying to figure out how and when to go about really articulating it.”
Freese adds that despite his shock at his dismissal from the band, he “did really enjoy the last two years [he] spent with those guys”, adding however: “They were good to me… until they weren’t.”
Much of Freese’s disappointment at being let go from the Foo Fighters appears to stem from his admiration for frontman Dave Grohl.
“I loved having Dave as a bandleader,” he continues. “I enjoyed being around those guys. They were generous and good to me… and that’s what makes the whole thing even more of a mystery. I think I’m a pretty good read on people, and I did not see that coming. One day it was nothing but laughs, we’re on stage and Dave’s looking at me every night like, ‘You’re killing it, dude!’ And then it was just – over.”
Foo Fighters have a string of tour dates planned for 2026 in North America. For tickets and dates, head to the band’s official website.
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David Ellefson thinks Megadeth should “give fans what they want” and include him in farewell tour: “Any reason that I’m not there now is unfounded, untruthful and unfair”
If this is truly the end of the road for Megadeth, David Ellefson believes he should be a part of it. Last August, the thrash metal titans announced plans to release one final studio album followed by a farewell tour, bringing more than four decades of metal history to a close.
But while leader Dave Mustaine has publicly stated that he doesn’t intend to invite former members back for the band’s final run, Ellefson clearly sees things differently. The ex-Megadeth bassist also describes his continued absence as “unfounded”, “untruthful” and “unfair”.
Speaking on Argentinian rock radio station UnDinamo, the musician reiterates that he remains “available” for Megadeth’s final tour – potentially alongside other past members such as guitarist Marty Friedman.
“I have always said that I am available for that. And I would do it because I think any reason that I’m not there now is unfounded,” says Ellefson [via Blabbermouth]. “It’s untruthful and it’s unfair because clearly there’s nothing wrong. So, I would hope and even pray to [God] that any misunderstanding, any bitterness would be removed, that that would somehow be dissipated.”
Reflecting on his career and the role of fans, Ellefson adds: “It’s funny – you make your first record, you have no fans. You just make your first album. Then you start to get fans who [say], ‘Hey, give us more.’ So you make album two, like we do. And then at that point, you – I feel – have an obligation to listen to your fans. You don’t have to do everything they say, like, ‘Make Rust In Peace Part II,’ ‘cause creatively the spirit leads you where it’s supposed to go. But I think, especially when you’re playing concerts – making albums is music business; playing concerts is show business. They’re two separate things that kind of come together.”
Without fans, he adds, there is no second album – and no farewell tour. “So, to me, you give them what they want.”
He also points to Friedman’s 2023 appearances with Megadeth as a sign that reunions are possible.
“So for me, yes. Marty – I can’t speak for anyone else, but Marty coming back to play a couple of shows showed his willingness, which I think was great,” says Ellefson. “I would wish that Dave [Mustaine]… Look, if it were just me and Dave sitting here, I’m sure everything would be fine, but there’s a lot of people with influences, and that can be sticky. So my hope is that the voice of the fans gets louder than any other voice that would tear it apart.”
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Watch the awesome moment Chino Moreno pulled a fan onstage to play guitar with Deftones at a recent Poland show
As a fan, nothing screams ‘once in a lifetime’ quite like getting pulled onstage to jam with your favourite band.
That’s exactly what went down at Deftones’ 5 February show at the Atlas Arena in Łódź, Poland, when one lucky fan got the ultimate VIP moment: joining the band for a set-closing performance of 7 Words from their 1995 debut album, Adrenaline.
According to The PRP, the guitarist, named Kacper, had been holding up a sign all night asking to play with the metal band. He eventually caught the attention of frontman Chino Moreno, who couldn’t resist having a little fun.
“The kid did the gesture for guitar solos, to which Chino joked, ‘saxophone?’,” a fan reports. “And then Chino said, ‘Guitar?’ He looked over at his bandmates and smiled and said ‘We’ll see.’”
As the band reached the end of their 20-song set, they made good on that tease. Kacper was brought up from the crowd, embraced Moreno, and was handed the singer’s Gibson SG by a guitar tech.
“Okay, so it starts in F sharp major,” Moreno joked, winding up the audience before launching into the pummelling opener from Adrenaline.
Judging by the footage, Kacper more than held his own, and the crowd absolutely loved it.
Check out the wholesome (and frankly, impressive) moment below.
Meanwhile, guitarist Stephen Carpenter – who in 2022 announced he would no longer tour outside North America with the band – remains absent from these overseas dates. As Moreno previously admitted, he’s still not sure why.
“If he does have an answer, I think it’d be great if one day he would share it,” said the singer.
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Marty Friedman credits social media for keeping “excitement in the guitar”
Love it or hate it, social media algorithms now play a bigger role in music discovery than radio ever did. A single 30-second clip can launch a career, revive a forgotten track, or send a boutique guitar pedal into backorder chaos overnight. And according to Marty Friedman, that same machine is doing something else: keeping guitar culture alive and kicking.
Speaking in a recent interview with musician Tobias Le Compte, the former Megadeth shredder argues that guitar’s popularity has always been cyclical – but today’s platforms are amplifying it in ways that simply weren’t possible before.
“It goes up and down in popularity as an instrument,” Friedman explains. “But the great thing about now is social media is just such a big support of guitar.”
“Just right now, I did two things that are, without social media – no one would know what they are. But I did a great collaboration with Ichika Nito, and it’s all over social media now.”
That reach, he argues, has real-world consequences for the instrument’s future.
“And that gets people who sit around watching the internet all day to play guitar, you know what I mean. And if there wasn’t interest in guitar from those people, they’d be playing games or other things,” says Friedman.
“But it’s wonderful to see those people feel the fun of playing guitar and get the satisfaction. I’m sure it’s fun playing video games too, but it’s wonderful to play an instrument with your hands and not just a computer. And so thanks to social media, there’s a lot of excitement in the guitar.”
That optimism isn’t universally shared, though. Joe Bonamassa has previously cautioned that the pressure to constantly post on social media can shift the focus away from creativity and music-making itself.
“How long you can stay inspired doing one-minute videos is up to the individual,” Bonamassa said. “And I find that if I feel the need to stay relevant because I haven’t posted something in a minute and I just go, ‘I haven’t played guitar today but let me tune this Les Paul up and do a one-minute video.’”
“I’ve been guilty of this in the past where that one minute where it took me to film something in one take and just throw on Instagram was the only minute of music I had made that entire day. And that’s not for me,” said the guitarist. “That’s crossing a line where your inspiration is the dopamine you’re going to get from the comment sections of your social media. So for me personally, that’s not the lifestyle I want to live.”
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Manson Supermassive Black Fuzz review: heavy, heady filter fuzz that’s not just for Muse worship
£259, mansonguitarworks.com
Matt Bellamy is a fuzz guy. You kind of have to be, to not only play guitars with in-built fuzzes, but for that in-built fuzz to be the Z.vex Fuzz Factory, a fuzz that’s as fantastic as it is finicky. There are few more prominent modern champions of weird, spitty, chaotic fuzz guitar tones than Muse, and for many Bellamy’s guitar sound is the touchstone for Fuzz Factory tones and fuzz as a whole.
And so we, finally, have a signature Matt Bellamy fuzz pedal. Which is, perhaps surprisingly, not a signature Fuzz Factory. It is instead made by Manson, a company that Bellamy is the majority shareholder of. It’s a collaboration with UK-based builder ThorpyFX, which has allowed Manson to both tap his wealth of experience in circuit design and keep things all UK-made.
Image: Adam Gasson
Manson Supermassive Black Fuzz – what is it?
The Supermassive Black Fuzz (which I will now just call the SMBF so that the internet doesn’t run out of ink) is, tonally, inspired by the fuzz sounds heard specifically on the song Supermassive Black Hole. Brits will remember this track as being Muse’s highest-charting UK hit, and Americans will remember it from the baseball scene in the first Twilight film. It’s obviously a killer song – it remains their most enduring hit from that era when Muse were kicking out insane, fuzzy and theatrical hard rock that didn’t really sound like anything else on the radio. The pedal uses the thick, saturated guitar lines as a jumping off point to shape a fuzz with a lot of tricks up its sleeve for something ostensibly based off a single track.
Manson Guitar Works doesn’t lay out the exact structure of the fuzz circuit, but suffice it to say that it’s very much its own thing. Notably it’s not really a Fuzz Factory-inspired thing, at least not from a controls perspective, and its tone stack sets it very far apart from any specific vintage lineage. The core fuzz sound runs into an aggressive filter with variable Q, with the Peak footswitch engaging a boosted allpass/static phase filter.
The controls here are named in the grand tradition of ‘theme over function’ – you’ve got Magnitude, Warp, Dimension and Gravity, which are respectively volume, tone, filter Q and gain. It was pretty easy to remember Magnitude as volume, but I’ll be honest, I did have to frequently refer to the manual for the others. At least the EQ on/off switch is fairly unambiguously named, which is both good from a UX standpoint and a slight missed opportunity from a theming standpoint. Presumably “Hawking radiation on/off” didn’t quite fit on the toggle washer…
Strangely, the gain/volume and filter/Q controls are diagonally opposite from each other. This hardly makes the pedal unusable, obviously, but it’s perhaps not the most intuitive way of laying the knobs out, especially when they’ve already got non-standard names. It means that in your head you can’t easily divide the control surface into two vertical or horizontal halves, one for the core fuzz controls and one for the filter controls – it’s all just a soup of ‘controls.’
The engraved metal knobs also don’t really help on the UX front. They may be fairly indestructible, but they only have a tiny grey-on-silver line to tell you where they’re pointing. At a glance across a dark stage it’s basically impossible to see your settings. Again, not really a dealbreaker, but it’s another tick in the ‘form over function’ checklist. Cool is cool until it’s so cool it’s hard to use. But never mind that – how are the sounds?
Image: Adam Gasson
Manson Supermassive Black Fuzz – build quality and usability
Perhaps fittingly for a pedal named after a black hole, the Supermassive Black Fuzz is dense. Drop this thing on the floor, it’s more likely to tunnel through to the centre of the Earth than break. The knobs are milled from aluminium, and engraved with custom designs, and are clearly extremely sturdy.
The double-sloped enclosure is also engraved aluminium, with a spacey black hole design that extends over the back edge. Aesthetically it’s undeniably striking, although I do wish that there was a little less logo on the thing – the design is sleek, dark and intriguing, but the massive typography tips the balance into perhaps overwhelming visual maximalism. Oh well – that’s probably on me for expecting any kind of restraint from a Muse-related product.
Image: Adam Gasson
Manson Supermassive Black Fuzz – sounds
First things first – the SMBF can indeed make you sound like the hit 2006 song and 2008 vampire baseball jam Supermassive Black Hole. How close you can get relies on a few more aspects of the rest of your setup – you’ll definitely want to make sure your amp is relatively clean so that you’re focusing more on the crunch and splat, but that sound is absolutely in here. But here’s the interesting thing – the tone that apes that song absolutely one of the more restrained ones on offer. This thing can get bonkers.
First off let’s remove the filter and the “Peak” boost from the equation to get a taste for the raw fuzz. It ranges from spluttery and bright on the lower settings to full-on tonal destruction in the higher gain-ranges. I recently modified a Boss FZ-2 PCB to remove the octave aspect from the fuzz – the SMBF reminds me a little of that sound. It has the massive full-range approach of a more modern EQ and circuit design, combined with the chaotic, aggressive saturation of a more vintage unit. “Best of both worlds” is trite, but…
On its own this would be a mightily impressive two-knob fuzz. For such a wild sound it has a strangely high-fidelity quality to it – it’s like a fully-produced fuzz tone, complete with studio compression and mastering. However this is not the full story, obviously – it is time to reintroduce that filter, which we can do with a quick flick of the EQ on/off switch.
This is not just a RAT-style high-end roll off or even a scooped Big Muff tilt control. It’s far more resonant a filter, and its operation is highly dependent on how you have that Q control set. Set wide, the filter is good for pretty broad tonal adjustments, but set it narrow and the fun truly begins. It’s great for honking, screaming leads, as well as for thick sludge metal tones – and, for a more subtle textural layer, it can also turn your guitar totally anaemic for some spikey, clanging riffs that will work fantastically in a fuller mix.
The Peak footswitch isn’t a straight ahead boost mode, but instead a boosted static filter – it’s pretty subtle without the EQ engaged, but with it on, it becomes even more nasal and aggressive. It’s a great addition, really, as it gives you a pretty viable way of going from a rhythm to a lead tone – or just making the overall thing just that much more aggressive.
But for all of the talk of aggression, it is a fantastically versatile fuzz – I just kept on finding tones in it, even when I took off my reviewer hat and went full self-indulgent drone metal with the thing. Relatedly it’s also a fantastic fuzz for stacking – a RAT afterwards was incredibly gratifying in how it smoothed off some of the sharper edges for an even thicker block of fuzz.
Sonically, it’s pretty hard to fault the SMBF, however there is one particular area where the pedal’s monolithic approach to UX has led to a tonal limitation – namely, the lack of an expression input. In my playing I was messing around with the filter control, and the sharp Q and exaggerated response lent the actual sweeping motion a dynamic and ear-catching character, one of an extreme and modern fuzz wah. But unlike, say, the Death By Audio Evil Filter, you’ve got no way to manipulate the filter as you play, unless you count kneeling down and messing with the knob. That’s doable in some situations, but a more repeatable and hands-off solution would have really elevated the chaos-summoning possibilities of the unit.
Image: Adam Gasson
Manson Supermassive Black Fuzz – should I buy one?
The SMBF is by no means a perfect pedal. Its bespoke-engraved knobs would be a shame to replace, but if I was to add this to any kind of live board I would tearfully replace them with ones I could actually see. Relatedly its slightly confounding control scheme is something that can be overcome with use, however for quick adjustments on the fly it is still a little annoying to have to rolodex four abstract black hole-related concepts and quickly match them to volume, gain, filter and Q.
Another elephant in the room: this is an expensive fuzz. Knowing the price and listening to the ultra-clean, ultra in-depth sounds, it is possible to square how much it costs with what it can do. But it’s still over £250 for a four-knob fuzz. The cash is undeniably felt in the build and sonic quality, and thanks to the EQ and Peak switches it’s not like it’s a single-mode effect – but it’ll be pricey enough to give a lot of players understandable pause.
With that said, the sonics are pretty much faultless. If there is ever a V2 of this pedal, and I hope there is because I want to see this circuit continue to exist and develop, I’d put expression control and a more sensible layout at the top of my wishlist. But until then this is still an extremely cool fuzz, one that will have you fast approach Supermassive Black Hole’s tones and shoot well past the event horizon, all the way into that little room with Matthew McConaughey in it shouting at bookcases.
Image: Adam Gasson
Manson Supermassive Black Fuzz – alternatives
As mentioned it’s not like this is a clone of any one other fuzz circuit, but if you’re both a Muse fan and a fuzz fan I’d be remiss not to mention the ZVEX Fuzz Factory, of course, which is the actual fuzz you hear on that track, and the one Bellamy has used for years.
Another boutique option would be the Death By Audio Evil Filter, a chaotic fuzz driven through a very, well, evil filter. If you aren’t as bothered about the fuzz-wah nature of it or are put off by the DBA option’s price, then you could also take a look at the DOD Carcosa, a very chaotic-sounding box that straddles the line between a spluttery vintage voice and a modern level of amp-shattering output.
Finally, to go for something a literal 10th of the budget of the SMBF, you could gravitate towards something like the Behringer SF300, a clone of the long discontinued (change this please Boss) FZ-2 Hyperfuzz, which is a vintage fuzz combined with a more modern active EQ.
[Editor’s Note: Meng Ru Kuok, Founder & CEO of Caldecott Music Group is a part owner of Manson Guitar Works. Guitar.com is part of Caldecott Music Group]
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Ichika Nito claps back at “fake” playing accusations with a killer one-take performance
Nowadays, it can be hard to trust what you see online. In fact, people are quick to assume the worst, with viral shredder Ichika Nito recently facing accusations of miming in online videos. However, the Japanese guitarist has released a single-shot performance video to set the record straight.
Nito appeared on The First Take to show that he’s the real deal. The Japanese YouTube channel is known for placing a singers and bands in a studio and allowing them a single take to prove their worth – however, Nito’s episode comes as part of the new Highlight series.
The Highlight series in particular puts on a spotlight on individual talent. And the guitarist does just that, performing i miss you in one sitting with no edits – that means every second is there to scrutinise, from the tense walk to his seat right down to his closing strum.
“The concept is simple,” Nito writes in an Instagram post. “Step into the studio and capture a performance in a single take. No vocals, no backing track, just guitar, all in one shot.”
Nito’s single-take performance comes as a huge clap back at those doubting the authenticity of his skills. Back in January, YouTuber Jacobra Records released a video dubbing Nito the “ultimate FAKE guitarist”. The video fully dissects some of Nito’s online content, and ultimately accuses Nito of miming.
However, Nito’s First Take performance seems to prove he’s pretty capable. It even has a few imperfections, which to adds to the video’s authenticity.
It’s a sentiment Rabea Massaad shared in his own video critiquing guitar culture’s “endless pursuit for perfection”. In light of all the recent accusations of miming, he explains how we should shift focus from “unobtainable perfection” and remember that authentic players fumble sometimes too.
Pointing to Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt as an example, Massaad explains that imperfections just show that a guitarist is human. “There are plenty of live videos out there of him making mistakes and playing bad notes and being a bit sloppy… but it’s cool because he’s performing and he’s loving it. Just embrace the imperfections. Some of the best solos and best performances out there have imperfections. It’s part of being human!”
Regardless of whether an online guitarist is faking or not, the truth always comes out in the end. Take Giacomo Turra, for example: when he was accused of plagiarism, even Rick Beato came forward saying that the guitar fraud “couldn’t play well enough to put the video out” when he was set to feature on his channel.
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Gear Radar: 15 Pro-Grade Tools to Refine Your Rig
This month's roundup features 15 essential releases, including EarthQuaker Devices’ all-analog tube preamp, Red Panda’s new pitch delay, and a studio-grade line isolator from Lehle. Whether you need vintage grit or modern precision, we’ve got the highlights.
Fender Player II Lavender Haze Collection
Chicago Music Exchange and Andertons introduce their latest exclusive: Lavender Haze—a Player II collection that looks like a lost custom color from Fender’s golden era and sounds bigger, warmer, and more powerful than ever. Each instrument is loaded with exclusive “Full Dip” pickups, upgraded wiring mods, and thoughtful vintage-inspired details.
MOD-mini, CHO-mini, and DEL-mini
Nobels’ new mini pedals all feature tap tempo, mono or stereo (TRS), and true- or buffered-bypass switching. Each model offers 3 modes: MOD-mini has tremolo, phase, and u-vibe; CHO-mini has chorus 1, chorus 2, and flanger; DEL-mini tape, analog, and digital. Lots of features, great value!
StroboVUE
Building on the legacy of the StroboStomp HD, the view-only StroboVUE delivers Peterson’s renowned strobe accuracy in an always-on pedalboard format. Its angled, high-visibility display and fully top-mounted jacks keep setups clean. Featuring pure buffered output, continuous tuning feedback, and no mute switch, StroboVUE is built for players who demand precision.
Aqueous Chorus
Dial in the past with the tilt EQ to create vintage bucket brigade tones, or dial it the opposite way to achieve classic ’80s sounds. The Aqueous features a preamp for gain makeup to limit the input and brings the circuit to life.
ZEQD-Pre
This all-analog tube preamp, designed with Dr. Z Amplification, features a real EF86 pentode tube to deliver authentic warmth and touch-sensitive response. This end-of-chain solution includes a three-band EQ, independent boost, analog cabinet simulation, and XLR/headphone outputs—perfect for direct recording or pedalboard-based rigs.
RIDGE
Do you want complete control of your overdrive? Kernom Ridge preserves your pure analog tone while unlocking the power of digital control. Its patented Analog Morphing Core sweeps smoothly from edge-of-breakup to saturated lead and every drive tone in between. Save presets, use MIDI or expression, and command your tone.
P-ISO TRS XLR Stereo
This stereo line isolator brings you closer to the main system. Passively, it converts your stereo audio signal not only to balanced XLR but lifts the ground so there’s no chance of noise or hum. Perfect for pedalboards or modeler, live or studio—all fitted into a handy size.
RD-1 Pitch Delay
This focused digital delay features integrated pitch and frequency shifting designed for immediate, hands-on control. Shift repeats once or endlessly in the feedback loop, from clean delays to subtly twisted textures and out-there sounds.
Dirt Dog Overdrive Pedal
The Dirt Dog Overdrive—developed with Joey Landreth—delivers expressive, amp-like breakup with outstanding touch sensitivity. Simple gain, level, bite, and tone controls make it easy to shape everything from warm grit to rich, sustaining drive.
Smoking in the Boys Room
This bold cross-border collab takes Summer School Electronics’ DS-1-inspired buzzsaw distortion and smashes into Supercool Pedals’ watery Small Clone chorus to create unmistakable grunge tones. With a chain-order switch in tow and art soaked in ’90s lore, it’s a blistering love letter to an iconic sound.
Ghost Drive Transparent Overdrive
This boutique, Klon-style overdrive pedal is now fully built and ready to play. Get rich, transparent drive, smooth sustain, and dynamic response without building the kit yourself. Perfect for adding warm grit or pushing your amp into singing lead tones.
Two Kings Boost Dual Overdrive
The StewMac Two Kings, based on the Analog Man King of Tone, packs two legendary overdrive circuits into one fully built pedal, no soldering required. From transparent boost to rich mid-gain crunch, stack the drives for endless tonal options. Perfect for shaping your rhythm tone or adding singing sustain to solos.
Lightcycle Phasor II
This fully assembled, board-ready analog phaser pedal was inspired by the legendary Mu-Tron Phasor II. Featuring lush, sweeping modulation, rich vintage tone, and three intuitive controls for rate, depth, and feedback, it effortlessly delivers anything from subtle movement to deep, psychedelic swirls—no assembly required.
Sun Fuzz
A boutique-style pedal inspired by the Analog Man Sun Face, fully built and board-ready. The Sun Fuzz delivers rich, touch-sensitive fuzz tones with warmth, clarity, and adjustability. Featuring silicon-based circuitry with internal bias and clean blend controls for tonal finesse, it handles thick chords and saturated leads equally well.
Reader Pedalboards 2026
Pedalboards tell stories, and this year's submissions prove it! From the minimalist who ditched the road case and went back to a One Spot on the floor, to the collector building a “Starboard” entirely from famous guitarists’ gear, to the neurosurgery videographer crafting soundscapes for the nervous system—these rigs reflect real lives and real gigs. Bass players with bamboo builds, experimentalists with dual boards, and portable warriors powering entire rigs from USB banks all made the cut. Here are seven boards with stories to tell.
New Wave Happy Place
Reader: Stephen JacksonI’m a pretty ordinary guitar player, but I’ve loaded up on ten pedals that make me sound halfway decent. For me, my happy-place sonics are from the diffuse new wave genre of the late 1970s to mid-1980s. I just can’t get enough.
I prefer keyboard-dominated new wave that’s generally kind to enthusiastic but ordinary guitarists. I like it nice and dark—the Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, or the Cocteau Twins—or more pop-ish with some grit, like the Psychedelic Furs. I also love what I call “skinny guitar rock new wave”—earlier Talking Heads or Elvis Costello.
My pedals are powered by a Fender Engine Room LVL12, which is great for cutting down amp hum. Yes, there are battery packs that power pedals and may even help reduce cord hum, but they make me nervous—I forget to charge my phone or my vacuum stick, let alone a battery pack.
The first port-of-call from guitar to amp on my rig is a Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner. Next is an always-on MXR Dyna Comp compressor. Following that is a new wave synth staple, an Electro-Harmonix Synth9. Then the overdrive pedals: a newly-released entry in the Tube Screamer lineage, the TWA SC-01 Source Code, which is commonly on and dialed up relatively mellow; a kicked-up MXR Timmy; and a seething and spitting Electro-Harmonix Op Amp Big Muff Pi. My skinny rock songs get the SC-01 treatment or a Timmy on occasion. Oddly enough, the Big Muff is at home when turned down to backing some electronica—Berlin, for instance—as well as noisy new wave.
Next up is an MXR Smart Gate. Before I added that—and the Fender Engine Room—my Fender Jazz Bass had an annoying hum. Not anymore.
Finally, there are three stomps that, along with the Synth9, get my sound to the electronica and pop new wave happy place: an Electro-Harmonix Lester K stereo rotary speaker pedal, a Boss CE-2W Waza Craft Chorus, and a Boss DD-8 Digital Delay. My advice: never fear a chorus pedal.
Portable Power
Reader: Adam ThomasThe board itself has a Li’l-moXie power supply hiding underneath. The red USB cable plugs into any USB power bank and powers the whole rig. The guitar output plugs straight into the [TC Electronic] Sub ’N’ Up [Octaver] pedal for the creation of bass lines and general low-frequency ambience. From there the signal travels to the Spark GO to be given a thorough going-over before it heads into the Lekato Looper. The second layer of the loop probably needs a true bypass from the Sub ’N’ Up and a different preset on the GO—no problem if you have the Spark Control X.
Next I send the signal into the [TC Electronic] Iron Curtain noise gate to get rid of any little imperfections created by the looper, and off we go to the Mooer Drummer X2 to provide some rhythmic accompaniment. I send the final output to a SubZero 15" portable PA (battery powered) via a stereo splitter line, giving me more options than you can shake a stick at for the entertainment of your fellow man, no matter where you may find them.
Experimental Lab
Reader: Kurt NolenI’m the Medical Photographer/Videographer for the University of North Carolina School of Medicine Department of Neurosurgery, and frequently need to produce educational/academic or communications-related videos. Sometimes this material can use more narrative styles of music, but frequently it needs textural soundscapes that reference the subject matter in the video and drive viewer interest without being distracting. Want to evoke the sound of your globus pallidus? What does your nervous system sound like? What would high-intensity, focused ultrasound treatment sound like if you could hear it? This rig does it. I’m also an experimental composer and noise artist in my free time and needed something that could serve that purpose—or for sitting in with my friend’s Oingo Boingo cover band.
Board #1 (front of amp): guitar into Ernie Ball VPJR, DigiTech Whammy 4, Morley Bad Horsie, Xotic SP Compressor, Boss FT-2 Dynamic Filter, EarthQuaker Devices Swiss Things—loop 1 out to MXR Duke of Tone, Electrofoods Ultd Pigpile fuzz, EarthQuaker Devices Bit Commander, EarthQuaker Devices Time Shadows V1, Boss JB-2 (with JHS Red Remote), JHS Bonsai, JHS PackRat, Boss DM-2W to loop 1 return.
Board #2 (amp FX loop or loop 2 on EQD Swiss Things if running direct): FX out to EarthQuaker Devices Rainbow Machine, MXR EVH117 Flanger, MXR EVH Phase 90, Boss DC-3, Walrus Mako D1 Delay V2, Red Panda Bitmap, EarthQuaker Devices Arpanoid, Chase Bliss Audio MOOD, Red Panda Tensor, Pigtronix Infinity 2, Walrus Audio Slö Multi Texture Reverb to FX return (or Swiss Things loop 2 return if direct).
Legendary Pedals
Reader: Paul MartinThis is my “Starboard.” I call it that because it’s made up of pedals previously owned by famous guitarists. I mostly bought them from artist sales on Reverb, with a couple from Techno Empire and Pedal Pawn in the U.K. I was randomly collecting artist-owned pedals for a while, but when I bought [Deftones bassist] Sergio Vega’s pedalboard I decided to put a board together. The line selector switches between the top row for soloing and bottom row for clean. The board itself was owned by Sergio.
Top row: Boss PH-3 Phase Shifter, owned by Andy Taylor (Duran Duran and the Power Station); 1980s Ibanez AD9 Analog Delay, owned by Mitch Holder, a go-to session guitarist for Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand, and Lionel Richie; Boss DD-2, owned by Kiko Loureiro (Megadeth); signed MXR EG74 Eric Gales Raw Dawg Overdrive (limited to 250); vintage MXR MX-102 Dyna Comp, owned by producer and musician Dennis Herring; Boss LS-2 Line Selector, owned by Evanescence; Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner, owned and signed by Tommy Emmanuel.
Bottom row: Walrus Audio Lillian Analog Phaser; Electro-Harmonix 720 Stereo Looper, owned by Malcolm Cecil, who invented the TONTO analog synthesizer and was responsible for the sounds on Stevie Wonder’s first three albums; JHS Artificial Blonde Madison Cunningham Signature Vibrato, signed by Madison when she was in Dublin supporting John Mayer; Friday Club ED-450b Echo Machine, owned by Isaac Brock (Modest Mouse); Boss CH-1 SUPER Chorus, owned by Daryl Stuermer (Genesis and Phil Collins); Boss HF-2 Hi Band Flanger, owned by Tad Kubler (the Hold Steady); and Goodrich Model 122 Volume Pedal, owned by Steve Lukather (Toto). From soloing on Stevie Nicks’ “Stand Back” to virtually all of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, it doesn’t get much cooler than that.Bamboo Bass Rig
Reader: Dino von WintersdorffMy bass pedalboard: Starting with a TC Electronic PolyTune 2 tuner, the signal goes into a Seymour Duncan 805 Overdrive, then a Seymour Duncan Forza Overdrive, an Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff, and finally a Donner Noise Killer. [An EBS MultiComp sits top right as well.] All on a board made out of bamboo and plywood, giving a fresh vibe on the stage!
First I got the Seymour Duncan Forza to have some nice controllable overdrive for the bass—the 3-band EQ helps get a nice tone. Then I found the clean signal was too boring and I added the SD 805 to have an always-on slight crunch and tone shape, and I love it! Sometimes the Muff and Forza are on at the same time, but the 805 isn't. So switching back to only 805 mode can be wild—there are times onstage that I would hit not only those three pedals, but also the tuner, instantly killing my signal!
No Board Required
Reader: Sam PaigeSo obviously, yeah, there’s no board. It’s on the floor. In the 20-plus years I’ve been playing—starting with a few daisy-chained pedals to a fully-loaded [Pedaltrain] Novo 24 and nearly doing my back in taking the case offstage—I’ve got back to the pick-and-mix life of a [Truetone] 1 Spot and whatever I fancy.
Recently a band I fronted for six years or so fell apart, and as one door closed another opened. Starting in a new project, this was the first few weeks of bringing some old pedals and the 1 Spot to a new adventure and finding a new footing again.
Chain: Defects Super Super Super, something of a clone of the rare Death By Audio Super Fuzz War. Fuzz on one side, then boost. Inside there are dip switches for each side to shape EQ, add gain, add mids—usual setup is “full Fuzz War” with added mids, and currently a full-range boost on the other side. Second, the Electro-Harmonix Mel9, a sort of impulse buy based on seeing one of my favorite guitarists, Mr. John Dwyer, use it. It’s janky, has trouble with certain power supplies, and seems to have no built-in compression. So your effect out is either too quiet, just right, or blows your head off. I love it. It hasn’t left a setup since I bought it. Next, the Boss TU-2—god knows how old it was when it got to me (I rarely buy new), but I’ve had it for at least a good 15 years. A bit hard to see in the direct sunlight, but at least it won’t break. And a Boss RE-20 [Space Echo]—the more I use it, the more I’ve grown to love it—the perfect amount of bounce for echo effects. It’s forever inspiring and reliable. I keep thinking of trading in for one of the newer models, either to downsize or expand, but I can’t relegate this pedal to the shelf, or the draft listings on Reverb or eBay.
Double Trouble
Reader: Randall BrownI spent years as an “only use the amp’s drive channel” guy, then started looking at EHX pedals out of nostalgia for a long-lost Muff Fuzz. Over the last 15 years or so, I’ve collected this batch of circuit friends with the idea of building wide tonal flexibility. I’m influenced equally by classic riff lords like Black Sabbath, contemporary psychedelic outfits like Osees and King Gizzard, and the ultra-modern trips of St. Vincent.
One of my favorite recent discoveries is a parallel mix of the EHX Cock Fight and the Fender Waylon Jennings Phaser—a slow-modulated buzz that really straddles the synth/buzz-guitar fence. I still pay the most attention to the magic that Electro-Harmonix puts out. In my drive to build the mega-board I have now, I started with the Freeze first. I also keep an eye out for additions to what I call the “fake bored keyboardist” section. The Freeze, Canyon, Key9, and Mel9 are the cornerstones of that. There are some days when I think I should go back to a single overdrive or go straight into the amp. But all the sounds are just too much fun!
My guitar goes into a PRS Mary Cries compressor, then a Boss TU-2, then into an Electro-Harmonix Switchblade Plus. From the Switchblade, two signal chains go to two different amplifiers.
Roland JC-120 signal chain: Electro-Harmonix Ravish Sitar, Tonebutcher WeeWah auto wah, TC Electronic Sub ’N’ Up, Electro-Harmonix Intelligent Harmony Machine, Electro-Harmonix Cock Fight, Eastwood BB-01 Manalishi Drive, Way Huge Stone Burner, Catalinbread Bicycle Delay, Boss DD-2 Digital Delay, Walrus Audio Fundamental Series Ambient, Electro-Harmonix Freeze.
Fender Hot Rod Deluxe signal chain: Electro-Harmonix Mel9, Electro-Harmonix Key9, DOD Gonkulator, Electro-Harmonix Nano Big Muff Pi, PRS Horsemeat Transparent Overdrive, Boss SL-2 Slicer, Electro-Harmonix Canyon, Fender Waylon Jennings Phaser, Way Huge Atreides Analog Weirding Module.
Holdfasts, Every Woodworker Should Own a Set!
The Lowdown: The Noiseless Pedals That Changed Everything
After three decades of owning, borrowing, returning, and exchanging every kind of pedal known to the world of bass and guitar, I think I’m finally getting somewhere with something I wish I hadn’t ignored for so long.
I have always struggled with the balance of sound on my pedalboard, generally running everything in series and basically rolling the dice on my clean tone every time I build a new board. There are only a handful of times over the past five or six years where I’ve thought to myself, “Wow! When I switch off all the pedals, I still sound like me.” It wasn’t until I started playing a passive bass, running my board in stereo, and really caring about having the option of a pristine clean sound whenever I wanted it that light bulbs started coming on in terms of preamps, parallel loop paths, and buffering.
I’m not here to shill gear. I just like making cool sounds with cool pedals. Some were sent to me by the makers, some were purchased, and some were gifted by friends. I only talk about specific brands and models to help you understand exactly what I’m doing, and how you might go about creating a similar sound if you so desire.
“I have always struggled with the balance of sound on my pedalboard.”
In fact, let’s start out with my most recent revelation in the world of parallel loop paths, with a unit that I paid full price for from GigRig. It’s the Wetter Box, and it facilitated taking two of my most beloved (but absolute pain-in-the-arse-to-control) pedals in series—the Meris Ottobit Jr. and the Chase Bliss Mood MkII. It gave me incredible control over not only both of those pedals individually, but my clean tone as it passes through that section of the chain. Suddenly, I have the option to have total chaos one second, and a heavenly, natural sound of the bass the next.
I should add that the reason for my newfound excitement over pedals that don’t actually make any sound is that I’m no longer at the mercy of the wide spectrum of true-bypass and buffer claims made by so many companies—which in reality range from almost acceptable to totally unusable, and suck all the life out of your tone.
With the recent shift to a passive bass as my main instrument, I’ve been trying a ton of different preamps and EQs at the front of the signal chain. The main reason for this is that it’s nice to have some EQ control when a room you’re performing in doesn’t play nice with your sound. The Colour Box V2 from JHS was incredible on tour last year, and the EQ saved my bacon several times in challenging venues.
I switched to the Caveman Audio BP-1 Compact this month for a tour with Mike Stern, and even without the EQ options of the Colour Box, it was still incredible to have control over the preamp and the output stages of my clean sound.
We then come to something I’ve seen on amps, multi-effects units, and preamps for years and have totally ignored—the effects loop! What was I thinking? I threw the three mono pedals on my board (Mantic Hulk, Iron Ether Frantabit, and MXR Vintage Bass Octave) into the effects loop of the BP-1 Compact and, once again, shortened the signal chain and improved my clean tone when those pedals weren’t engaged.
I know a lot of you reading this are going to be facepalming and saying, “Duh!” But if you're like me—someone who made it this far into a career without figuring this out—or if you're just starting and don't know what you don't know yet, this might help.
Go out and research buffers. Take a look at loop switchers from people like Morningstar or GigRig. And while you’re going nuts, like I have for so many years, over the incredible sounds pedals can bring to your playing, spare a few minutes’ thought for your clean tone. Even someone like me, who's fortunate enough to play a lot of shows and actually use all that weird gear you see me demo on YouTube, still needs a great clean tone most of the time.
The preamp/DI at the front of my signal chain is perfect for recording, and the Walrus Audio Canvas Stereo DI at the end is ideal for sending everything to FOH at shows. Now I can take both concepts anywhere and always have the option to be completely myself, with no compromise on effects or clean tone.
“I thought he’d look at me like, ‘Who the hell are you?’”: Why Warren Haynes “froze” and missed out on performing with BB King
Would you have the guts to jam with the one and only BB King? If you find the concept intimidating, you’re not alone; despite being an accomplished guitarist, Warren Haynes once “froze” when the blues legend invited him up on stage.
While Haynes has since worked up the nerves to perform alongside BB King, he was first presented with an opportunity to join King on stage back in the early ‘90s. After joining The Allman Brothers Band in 1989 for their reunion, the band would support King on tour in 1993. “We played with him in Texas,” Haynes tells Guitarist. “During the show, BB invited Gregg [Allman] to sit in [on organ].”
That’s when King shared an open invite to the rest of his musical peers backstage. “He asked, ‘Anyone else want to join me?’” Haynes recalls.
Considering Haynes hadn’t been properly introduced to the headline star, he felt like it wasn’t his place to waltz out on stage. “More than anything, I wanted to go… but I’d never met BB,” he continues. “I thought he’d look at me like, ‘Who the hell are you?’ So I just froze.”
Since he’d not been able to officially break the ice and chat to BB casually, Haynes still felt like a bit of a fanboy. The idea of going up on stage and performing with his icon was overwhelming. “I saw BB for the first time aged 19,” Haynes explains. “He gave me a guitar pick that I carried in my pants pocket for years until it eventually got lost.”
It’s not the first time Haynes has recounted the tale of his fanboy fears. In a 2012 interview with Classic Rock, the guitarist explained how the experience taught him a valuable lesson. “It taught to not be so shy and take advantage of opportunities when they come,” he said. “I had the opportunity several times to meet Stevie Ray Vaughan, but I didn’t want to bother him. I always thought I would meet him the next time. And, of course, there was no next time.”
That’s why, years later, Haynes took full advantage of the opportunity to perform with King. “It was years later that I finally got another opportunity to play with BB,” he tells Guitarist. “And I have to say that was an extremely proud moment.”
Haynes has recently worked alongside Joe Bonamassa on his BB King’s Blues Summit 100 tribute album, featuring on the track How Blue Can You Get. The record was released to mark what would have been King’s 100th year of life, as well as celebrating his musical legacy.
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Zakk Wylde Breaks Down Riffs, Gear, and Heavy Guitar Lineage
First things first. In case you’ve ever wondered, Zakk Wylde… hard case or gig bag? The answer is, “Neither, motherf—ers, I carry my guitar around sub-freezing New York City in proper Bezerker fashion, like a norse, warrior’s cudgel, exposed to the elements and ready for combat.” This is only one of the many questions that are answered when the Black Label Society, Zakk Sabbath, Pantera, and of course, Ozzy Osbourne guitarist visits the Axe Lords keep for some tough talk and hand-to hand-tomfoolery.
And while he’s ostensibly doing the rounds to promote Black Label Society’s forthcoming Engines of Demolition album, this is conversation that is delightfully far reaching: First guitars and why not to sell them, the meaning of the mysterious rune fretboard inlays on his Wylde Audio guitars, why Tony Iommi is the Henry Ford of hard rock, and how Ozzy Osbourne liked his ham sandwiches prepared. It’s a season-closer that feels like a hang—equal parts reverent, ridiculous, and obsessively specific.
Axe Lords is presented in partnership with Premier Guitar. Hosted by Dave Hill, Cindy Hulej and Tom Beaujour. Produced by Studio Kairos. Executive Producer is Kirsten Cluthe. Edited by Justin Thomas (Revoice Media). Engineered by Patrick Samaha. Recorded at Kensaltown East. Artwork by Mark Dowd. Theme music by Valley Lodge.
Follow Zakk @zakkwyldebls
Follow @axelordspod for news, updates, and cool stuff!
Behringer launches the Ring Stinger, a recreation of Lovetone’s classic boutique ring mod/fuzz pedal
Behringer has unveiled the Ring Stinger – a clone of the classic ‘90s fuzz/ring mod guitar pedal of the same name from boutique analogue pedal maker Lovetone.
Designed to offer a “world of sound sculpting carnage”, Behringer’s new Ring Stinger serves up guitarists – as well as synth players, bassists and other instrumentalists – classic ring modulation for metallic experimental sounds alongside a built-in fuzz circuit.
Alongside those core elements, the Ring Stinger also features a built-in pitch shifter, expression pedal compatibility for additional foot control, a low-frequency oscillator, for adding extra life to your tone via rhythmic pulses, a filter section for shaping your tone as you see fit, a range of waveforms, and a mix control for blending your wet and dry signal.
There’s also a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), plus true bypass for the total preservation of your signal when the unit is switched off. Multiple parameters are assignable to an expression pedal too, so you choose what an external pedal controls.
In terms of connectivity, the Behringer Ring Stinger has a DC power input plus a main mono output, expression pedal inputs for LFO depth and VCO, carrier in, VCO out and a main input jack.
“Guitarists, synth players, bassists, harpists, electric violinists and everything in between. You’re all welcome here!” says Behringer. “No matter what you’re looking to sonically tear apart and reinvent, Ring Stinger will welcome you with open arms.
“In fact the more creative the input source the better! Explore an entirely new soundscape for your instrument with a pedal previously reserved for boutique collectors.”
Credit: Behringer
No pricing info is available on the Behringer website, but we’re seeing the Ring Stinger on numerous retailer sites, like at Thomann, priced between £80 and £99.
This isn’t the first time Behringer has produced a Lovetone clone; in December, the company unveiled its take on Lovetone’s Meatball analogue envelope filter pedal.
Learn more about the Ring Stinger at Behringer.
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Manson and Matt Bellamy have faithfully recreated the crazy guitar from Muse’s Time Is Running Out video
[Editor’s Note: Meng Ru Kuok, Founder & CEO of Caldecott Music Group is a part owner of Manson Guitar Works. Guitar.com is part of Caldecott Music Group]
To perform intergalactic riffs, you’ll need an out-of-this-world guitar. And Matt Bellamy has you covered. The Muse frontman’s new Manson Signature Black Edition is his magnum opus, packed with every gadget you’d ever need for the perfect sci-fi axe.
Eagle-eyed fans might find the Manson Black Edition series familiar. And that’s because it’s a faithful recreation of one of Bellamy’s most eccentric guitars; back in 2003, the guitar made its debut in Muse’s Time Is Running Out video, boasting a body rammed with unique effects knobs and switches. Now, fans can get the guitar for themselves.
First up, the Black Edition OR (Origin Reissue) Relic comes as a totally accurate replication of Bellamy’s original matt black mahogany axe. Brainstormed over three years, the guitar has the same ‘worn-in’ look, complete with glued joint ‘repairs’, scrapes and scratches. It even has all the same components of the original guitar, which Manson says proved quite a challenge considering it’s been 23 years since the birth of Bellamy’s original creation.
As a result, the Black Edition series offers the same MIDI-controlled killswitch effects and slew of futuristic sounds in the form of the Z-Vex Fuzz Factory and theramin-style Wah Probe. There’s also Sustainer Intensity controls as well as a Sustainer three-way Mode Toggle, a pickup selector, and Comp and Stab controls.
On the back, there’s more – you can flick your LEDs on or off, as well as trim pots RF and LED Wah Probe trim pots, Ron Joyce Sub Board trim pot system, and volume controls for your Wah Probe and Fuzz Factory drive.
As a result, the OR Relic is the most exclusive release of the series. It’s limited to just nine guitars, and it’s set to cost £29,999. To make sure it gets to you with no extra dings, it also comes in a specially designed Protechnic flightcase.
Every OR guitar has also been personally road-tested and approved by Bellamy, with the Muse frontman having a go on each unique guitar before signing the back of its headstock. The strings Bellamy used will also come in a sealed bag with your guitar, together with a copper laser-etched certificate and some limited edition picks.
For those who can’t nab one of the ultra-scarce OR Relic models, there are also two New Era Black Edition models. The axes come as more modern interpretations of the original guitar, utilising newer, less rare components, as well as coming in both marked and squeaky-clean versions.
In terms of the components, the guitars still offer a slew of unique features. In terms of its integrated systems, there’s a Sustainiac Sustainer, Z-Vex Fuzz Factory, Manson/Ron Joyce FL Wah, and a MIDI Strip controller. Alongside volume and tonal controls, there’s a MIDI Rotary Program Potentiometer, Sustainiac Drive and a three-way Sustainic Mode Toggle, as well as a pickup selector. There’s also Fuzz Factory controls, as well as Comp and Stab controls.
However, the New Era editions are still pretty limited – after all, this is an all-in-one performance multi-tool, offering the “ultimate self-contained” instrument for the stage. For that reason, the New Era guitars are limited to just 25 pieces between them, costing £11,999 for an unmarked edition and £12,999 for a relic edition.
The New Era guitars ship in a Manson/Hiscox II case, as well as coming with a limited-edition strap and a hand-signed certificate by Bellamy and Manson’s Head of Production Tim Stark.
Whether you’re carving out rich art-rock words or fine-tuning your proggy licks, the Black Edition series is up to the task. Nicknamed the “Gadget Guitar”, Bellamy has explained that the Black Edition series is his definitive creation with Manson.
“If I could only have one guitar in the world, the Black Edition would be it,” he explains.
To date, Bellamy’s live rig and personal axe collection is rammed with Manson guitars. His first signature collaboration came back in 2001, where he conjured up his signature Mattocaster/MB shape to capture the feel of a Fender Telecaster with the sound of a Gibson Les Paul.
“Fundamentally, the way a guitar feels is so important,” he told us back in 2020. “When I was younger and I picked up a Strat or a Gibson or something like that, it would always send me down a certain way of playing, which I felt was less original than when playing my own design.”
“[When designing a guitar], I want to come up with a guitar that leads me down a path of 21st-century music rather than going backwards with a retro feel,” he added. “That’s always been the challenge with the guitar in the modern era of music.”
Learn more at Manson Guitar Works.
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Each guitar in Eastman’s new Kauffmann Series – created in partnership with Dutch builder Albert Kauffmann – is totally unique
Eastman has partnered with Dutch builder and master finisher Albert Kauffmann on its new Kauffmann Series, a line of guitars – each totally unique – across three body styles and four distinct aging levels.
Each guitar in the Kauffmann Series is powered by Lollar pickups, and sports Eastman’s innovative FullerTone neck system. This system, designed by Eastman head of design Otto D’Ambrosio, utilises a two-bolt neck joint to maximise neck-to-body contact and provide greater tone, sustain and stability.
Kauffmann Series guitars come in three body styles – with single-cut and double-cut options available, plus an offset – with each available in three distinct pickup configurations: Vintage, Classic and Deluxe, with Lollar Lollartron, Goldfoil, Soap Bar P90, Vintage Blonde, Royal T, and Special Sixty-Four pickups available across the board.
Meanwhile, each guitar sports a roasted pine body with a roasted maple neck, and has been given Albert Kauffmann’s signature “time travel” treatment, which essentially means four different levels of relicing: Light, Medium, Heavy or Extreme. Eastman says via this aging process, no two guitars in the Kauffmann Series are alike.
Credit: Eastman
Eastman draws parallels between Albert Kauffmann and the Dutch masters of light and shadow like Rembrandt van Rijn and Johannes Vermeer.
“Albert is a Dutch master in his own right,” the brand says. “Many works of art have left his workshop, each bearing his signature touch.
“It seems the Dutch truly have an eye for colour and light, and Albert brings that heritage to every guitar he creates. As an accomplished guitarist himself, Albert sets the benchmark: playability and tone above all else.”
Via this aging process, Kauffmann Series guitars are “built to feel instantly familiar – like an instrument you’ve trusted for years”.
The launch of the Kauffmann Series follows the FullerTone Offset, Eastman’s most player-centric electric yet, unveiled last month.
You can learn more about the Kauffmann Series at Eastman.
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Five tips for your next guitar recording session – how to sound better on record
Recording can be a stressful affair, we all know that. Months, sometimes years of writing, producing, refining and editing your songs culminate in a couple of days (if you’re lucky and have the budget!) staring at the omnipresent red light, a metronome most likely ticking away.
Most anxiety inducing of all, is that sometimes despite your best efforts, you need to adapt, think, play and perform under unfamiliar circumstances, so you’ll need to be rehearsed enough to think and change on the fly. Being practiced and rehearsed should be a given, and while it’s not included in the five tips we’re exploring, that’s the best thing you can do to get the best out of yourself, as obvious as that seems. Practice aside, it can be really beneficial to…
1 Set up your guitar!
The microscopic nature of recording can exaggerate problems that weren’t so obvious in a noisy jam room. A couple of mics placed a few inches from your guitar amp will have you hearing things more clearly than you ever have before, so issues like fretbuzz, intonation, tuning and the other rattles that guitars impart will be, quite literally, amplified.
A professional setup will pay dividends as trying to perform around intonation and tuning issues is like adding hurdles to a marathon. If you’re having tuning stability issues, you can bet your bottom dollar that they’ll be at their worst during your best take, so get them sorted before the recording. Fresh strings are great, but a brand new set will take a little while to settle, so be prepared to tune between every take, or give them a day to wear in.
Tiny rattles from screws, bridge pieces, tremolo arms and loose components can also wreak havoc on an otherwise perfect take, so tightening, fixing and securing all those moving parts is a great step towards success as well!
2 Have various tools, tricks and options
With your guitar playing in tip top shape, your parts well rehearsed, there’s a handful of odd little tips and tricks to push your recording to the next level. Tonality, feel and timbre of your recording can elevate it sonically or push it further than with just good playing.
For this reason, a handful of different plectrums can be great to subtly change the sound, as can various types of strings (as long as you’re prepared to set-up on the fly). Things like foam and tape to stop rattles, a tool to mute strings (a sock or hair tie works well, but there’s commercial options available), or various pieces of foam and rubber to help mute tremolo springs, ring-y tailpieces and the like can help you ready to perform your best. High quality microphones will pick up every nuance of your guitar, and trying to ‘fix’ or EQ these out in the mixing stage will be at the detriment of your tone.
3 Bring extra leads, cables, isolated power and be ready to pull your pedalboard apart
You might have your sounds and tone sorted at home, but once you’re at the studio playing in a different acoustic space, you might want or need to change things up. Common tools for live performance like noise gates, EQs, effects loops and more can suck tone, and while it’s practical for live performance, you can afford to lose them in the studio in the pursuit of an extra 5-10 per cent of sonic bliss!
For this reason, be ready to pull your pedalboard apart to get down to the crux of what’s necessary. Less is more, and each patch cable and pedal is sucking a little life from your guitar before it reaches your amp. If they’re not being used, get ‘em out of there!
On the subject of pedals, isolated power supplies are a great idea for the studio because of how they handle hum, something that is greatly exacerbated once you begin to add gain, let alone EQ and compression in a mix. A worthwhile investment, isolated power supplies can power multiple pedals, all the while isolating the pedal’s power from each other for a quieter result.
4 Know your songs, and know how you like to record them
Now that you’re sonically sorted, we’ve got some more holistic approaches to a great recording. Notes, timing and performance are important to practice, but it’s equally important to know your song and arrangement inside out and back to front. You might need to drop in from multiple points in a song, and going straight into the verse instead of the intro can feel very odd. Your engineer or producer might have questions about timing, metering and arrangement that you’ll need to confirm on the fly. For example, you might need to record scratch and guide guitars for your drummer, so you’ll need to be ready to play the song back to front with just a click track bleeping in your face, without the vocals guiding the amount of repeats, the drummer feeling it out, or the bass player bopping along.
On top of knowing the music itself, it’s important to understand how you like to record. Do you play better with headphones, isolated from the outside world? Maybe you need to stand in front of your amp, the speakers pumping at you and allowing you to use feedback creatively, or maybe you need to sit? Stand? The choice is yours, but only if you know what makes you play your best!
5 Have an open mind
Finally, it’s really important to have an open mind in the studio. While it’s essential to have a vision in mind for how the resulting recording will sound, stubbornness can sometimes push and pull the entire session to a halt if it’s not exactly as you’d imagined.
A lot of the time we’re more concerned with what something isn’t, rather than what it is. Just because a recording isn’t precisely as we’d envisioned, that doesn’t mean it’s bad. That’s not to say you should let go of the reins and allow the producer and engineer to make the songs their own, but a little flexibility can make for a better result overall, and that’s what all of these tips will help you do!
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One-Chord Vamps and the Truth
Improvising over one chord for long stretches of time can be a musician's best friend or worst nightmare. With no harmonic variation, we are left to generate interest through our lines, phrasing, and creativity. When I started learning to improvise, a minor 7 chord and a Dorian mode were the only sounds that I wanted to hear at the time. I found it tremendously helpful to have the harmony stay in one spot while I mined for new ideas to play. Playing over a static chord was crucial in developing my sense of time and phrasing.
The following is the first improvisational device I ever came across. I want to say I got it from a Frank Gambale book. The idea is that there are three minor pentatonic scales "hiding" in any given major scale. If we're in the key of C (C–D–E–F–G–A–B) we can pluck out the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. If we frame them over a Dm7 chord, they give us different five-note combinations of the D Dorian mode. In short, we are building minor pentatonic scales off the 2, 3, and 6 of the C major scale.
Viewing this through the lens of D minor (a sibling of C major and the tonal center for this lesson), D minor pentatonic gives us the 1–b3–4–5–b7, E minor pentatonic gives us 2–4–5–6–1, and A minor pentatonic gives us 5–b7–1–2–4. This means you can use your favorite pentatonic licks in three different locations and there are three different sounds we can tap into from the same structure.
If you smashed all of them together, you would get the D Dorian scale (D–E–F–G–A–B–C) with notes in common between the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. Ex. 1 uses all three scales, so you can hear the different colors each one creates over the chord.
Ex. 1
Ex. 2 is how I improvise with them, usually weaving in and out using different positional shapes.
Ex. 2
The next idea is one I stole from a guitarist who often came into a music store I worked at. On the surface, it's very easy: Just take two triads (in our example it will be Dm and C) and ping-pong between them. The D minor triad (D–F–A) gives us 1–b3–5, which is very much rooted in the chord, and the C major triad (C–E–G) gives us the b7–9–4, which is much floatier. Also, if you smash these two triads together, you get 1–2–b3–4–5–b7, which is a minor pentatonic scale with an added 2 (or 9). Eric Johnson uses this sound all the time. Ex. 3 is the lick I stole years ago.
Ex. 3
Ex. 4 is how I would improvise with this concept. Many different fingerings work with these, so experiment until you find a layout that's comfortable for your own playing.
Ex. 4
If two triads work, why not seven? This next approach will take all the triads in the key of C (C–Dm–Em–F–G–Am–Bdim) and use them over a Dm7 chord (Ex. 5). Each triad highlights different three-note combinations from the Dorian scale, and all of them sound different. Triads are clear structures that sound strong to our ears, and they can generate nice linear interest when played over one chord. Once again, all of this is 100% inside the scale. Ex. 5 is how each triad sounds over the track, and Ex. 6 is my attempt to improvise with them.
Ex. 5
Ex. 6
If we could find all these possibilities with triads, it's logical to make the structure a little bigger and take a similar approach with 7 chords, or in this case, arpeggios. Naturally, all the diatonic chords will work, but I'll limit this next idea to just Dm7, Fmaj7, Am7, and Cmaj7. I love this approach because as you move further away from the Dm7 shape, each new structure takes out a chord tone and replaces it with an extension. I notice that I usually come up with different lines when I'm thinking about different chord shapes, and this approach is a decent way to facilitate that. Ex. 7 is a good way to get these under your fingers. Just ascend one shape, shift into the next shape on the highest string, then descend and shift to the next on the lowest string.
Ex. 7
Ex. 8 is my improvisation using all four shapes and sounds, but I lean pretty heavily on the Am7.
Ex. 8
This last concept has kept me busy on the fretboard for the last five years or so. Check it out: You can take any idea that works over Dm7 and move the other diatonic chords. The result is six variations of your original lick. In Ex. 9 I play a line that is 4–1–b3–5 over Dm7 and then walk it through the other chords in the key. These notes are still in the key of C, but it sounds drastically different from playing a scale.
Ex. 9
In Ex. 10, I try to think about the shapes from the previous example, but I break up the note order in a random but fun way. The ending line is random but felt good, so I left it in.
Ex. 10
While all these concepts have been presented over a minor chord, you can just as easily apply them to any chord quality, and they work just as well in harmonic or melodic minor. Rewarding sounds are available right inside the harmony, and I am still discovering new ideas through these concepts after many years.
Though the above ideas won't necessarily be appropriate for every style or situation, they will work in quite a few. Developing any approach to the point that it becomes a natural extension of your playing takes considerable work and patience, so just enjoy the process, experiment, and let your ear guide you to the sounds you like. Even over just one chord, there is always something new to find.
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